The libretto (text) from Handel’s Messiah, composed in 1741, is entirely from the Bible. One of the most popular segments in this 3-hour masterpiece is from the Old Testament (OT), Isaiah 9:6, when Isaiah prophesized approximately 700 years prior to the birth of Jesus, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

These names are just some of the names, which are identified from the Bible [OT and New Testament (NT)] as belonging to Jesus. He is God incarnate, a part of the three-in-one Godhead, the eternal Son sent to earth by the Father to woo each person to be reconciled to God. In NT passage, John 6:28,29, potential followers, inquiring how to be saved, surround Jesus: “Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Yes, that’s it: believe and follow. As beautifully stated in NT John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” and in NT Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Why does He want us saved? Because God doesn’t want anyone to suffer eternal separation upon our death from Him, the author of all that is good: “God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” 1 Timothy 2:3b-6a

Acts 4:12, is noted above, and it is from the Book of Acts NT, which is about the first 30-years of Christianity. At the beginning of Acts, Jesus has just ascended to heaven, after spending 40-days with his followers after His resurrection (he died on a Roman cross, a mode of painful execution, and then after 3-days, came back to life). In Acts 3, Peter, a leading disciple (student) of Jesus, is speaking to the crowd at the Jerusalem temple. He has just miraculously healed a 40-year old lame-from-birth beggar, saying to him, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6) and because the people are marveling, Peter goes onto explain the entire Gospel (Greek for ‘good news’) about how Jesus is the promised Messiah, (which the people group called Israel, were told to expect by God through His OT prophets) who could save us from our fallen, sinful state. Messiah means ‘anointed by God’; the Greek word is ‘Christ’. Peter continues by describing Jesus as the Holy One, the Just, and the Prince of life, who they have killed but whom God has raised up.

Peter’s talk incites the priests and the Sadducees (a sect of Judaism sanctioned by the Roman government), who then arrest Peter and John, a fellow disciple. The next day, Peter, with an audience composed of Judaism’s Jerusalem hierarchy, continues the gospel, by stating in Acts 4:10-12 NKJV, “let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man (the lame beggar) stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ (Referring to OT Psalm 118:22) Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

They again reject Jesus, the prophesied cornerstone, by beating Peter and John, and threatening them to stop speaking about Jesus. In Acts 4:19, 20: “But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” For over 2000-years, followers of Jesus continue to spread the Gospel.

The following NT passage, 2 Corinthians 5:20,21, applies to Jesus believers and followers, instructing us to be ambassadors to this lost world: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Because His disciples would NOT stop sharing the Gospel, Jesus’ closest disciples died horrible deaths (except one; they kept trying to kill John but God wouldn’t let him die unnaturally!). All because they knew and had met the Truth. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

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